Extremely Hard Water and to Soften or not...

We are in our new place in the mountains of NM. Well is 400 ft deep and thank God produces a good amount. We are at the time trying to decide whether to install a water softener system or to just wait and see, but our intuition is that we do need it. Well, our neighbors have one. We are in the middle of nowhere in the mountain but have 2 neighbors that have lived here for over 20 years and they say we need it. We wish we didn't. It isn't exciting to invest all that money and then be a slave to the endless salt buying.

Searching here for posts on the subject, I find mixed experiences but to clarify a bit, here are our water test results: Hardness is 1500 mg/L, Total Dissolved Solids 1900 mg/L, Calcium 422.3 mg/L, Magnesium 99.51 mg/L, Silica 16, Sodium 59, Strontium (What is that??) 7.3, Alkalinity 180, Sulfate 1200.

We are going to get and RO system, but again, wish the softener was not necessary... but it really seems to be with that extreme hardness...

Hoping to hear from your experience and any thoughts or suggestions will be so appreciated.

If your plans include the reverse osmosis system you may find that you do not need to use a water softener.  Why not wait and see?

We use reverse osmosis only for appliances that we don't want to build up calcium and that seems to be working for us.

I have not had our water tests so I don't know how much of the calcium has been removed by reverse osmosis.

Another option would be to use distilled or even store-bought water on those appliances.

I am looking forward to hearing what other folks have to contribute.

I think it makes sense to find out what actually needs processed water.

The minerals will come out of solution when the water is heated. Which is not a problem if you can clean the surfaces (with the help of acidic acid).
Here the hard water is a problem for hot water heaters and dishwashers because they can't be cleaned.
But for drinking water, tea, cooking, .. it does not matter.

The fewer things you actually need to feed with reverse-osmosis water (or ion exchange), saving you money in the long run. You may even be able to place them close to each other, reducing piping and standing water.

Hi Kati,
I don't have experience with whether or not you should get one, but I used one for many years. I highly recommend the kind that is purely mechanical... no electricity needed. Also the kind with two tanks allows for one to clean the other. All I had to do was keep the reservoir full of salt.

Sebastian Köln wrote: the hard water is a problem for hot water heaters and dishwashers because they can't be cleaned.
But for drinking water, tea, cooking, .. it does not matter.

The fewer things you actually need to feed with reverse-osmosis water (or ion exchange), saving you money in the long run. You may even be able to place them close to each other, reducing piping and standing water.

I like the suggestion of placing water heaters and dishwashers close to each other.

Since we use well water we did not want to do the whole house reverse osmosis system since this system uses a lot of water so only our kitchen is set up with the system.

Water is free though when the well runs dry it is not so free ...

Something to keep in mind.

Reverse Osmosis systems soften water, but at the cost of the RO system's health.

You will wear down the membrane faster, and with a TDS above 1000 most RO systems won't be able to fully handle it.

I'd recommend a two tank system for reliability and simplicity, followed by RO for the kitchen. Think of it as your 'water bill' to ensure you have clean water where you own your own infrastructure! God forbid anything changes in the future with the water that you might not immediately notice, your filters will help take care of it.

One question to consider is, how complicated is your plumbing? If you have a lot of water using appliances (toilets, sinks, showers, dishwashers, etc) then water softening might be worth it to reduce the wear and tear on them. If your plumbing is simple, saving it with softening might not be worth it.

For my own purposes, I decided that the cost of water softening and hassle of salt and other maintenance was not worth it. I'm a decent plumber. I can replace stuff if/when it goes bad for less than water softening would save.

I do use an under-sink RO system for drinking water. These generally have pre-filters that help the life of the RO membrane. But it will degrade faster with hard water so that's another cost to consider. Unrelated hint- get a re-mineralization "filter" to pass water through last on it's way to your drinking water tap (sometimes called an alkaline cartridge.) RO strips out the good AND bad minerals so this much improves taste, pH, and healthiness of the water.

Very difficult (if not impossible) to truly quantify the softening decision into money and time over the long term. There are salt-free systems that don't actually soften the water. They change the structure of the minerals so they do not stick to your stuff instead. I wasn't sold on that idea either but it is another option to read up on.

I wonder about using a solar preheater to precipitate most of the minerals, and/or even a vacuum pump…

Usually solids dissolve *better* in hot water and gases dissolve better in cold water. This makes me think the heat is pushing CO2 out of the water (like soda pop going flat), thus removing the acidity that was keeping the alkaline minerals in solution.

If my thinking is correct, the minerals fall out when the CO2 falls out.  
If you want the minerals to fall out, make the soda pop go flat. If you don’t want the minerals to fall out, don’t let the soda pop go flat.